Designing the Puzzle

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Designing the Puzzle

• From Game Design by Bob Bates
• Chapter 6

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A Good Puzzle

• A good puzzle fits into its setting and presents
  an obstacle that makes sense. When the player
  solves it he knows why what he did worked.

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Types of Puzzles

• Ordinary Use of an Object A door with a golden
  lock. The player has a golden key.
• Unusual use of an object A candle can light up
  a dark room, but its wax can also be collected to
  make an impression of a key, it can light a fire
  that sets off a smoke alarm, or heat from its
  flame can expose writing on a piece of paper.

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Types of Puzzles - Continued

• Building Puzzles Time Traxx is based on
  building computers, robots and programming them.

In Eric the Unreadytheres a key on a chain
which is too Short to reach the lock. But, there
is also a wax seal that can be used to create an
impression of the key.
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Types of Puzzles - Continued

• Information Puzzles - These puzzles could be as
  simple as supplying a password, or as complex as
  deducing the correct sequence of numbers to
  defuse a bomb.
• Codes, cryptograms and other word puzzles A mad
  scientist has

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Types of Puzzles - Continued

• Excluded Middle Puzzles This involves creating
  a reliable cause-and-effect relationship and then
  requiring the player to recognize that a
  particular action will kick off a chain of events
  that will culminate in the desired action.
  Example Rubbing a lamp, summons a large bull,
  the bull sees something red he charges. Put the
  player in front of a locked RED door. The bull
  breaks it down.

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Types of Puzzles - Continued

• Preparing the way A wrinkle on the excluded
  middle puzzle that makes it even more difficult
  is require the player to create the condition. In
  the proceeding example, lets say the door is
  green but the player has a bucket of red paint.

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Types of Puzzles - Continued

• People Puzzles Here, the player needs to learn
  the key to a persons desires. If he is a guard,
  perhaps he can be bribed. If he is a spy, perhaps
  the player can uncover the secret piece of
  information he is seeking. If he is a child
  perhaps the player can find a toy.

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Types of Puzzles - Continued

• Timing Puzzles This is a difficult class of
  puzzle that requires the player to recognize he
  must take an action that does not yield an
  instant effect, but instead will cause something
  to happen at a particular point in the future.

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Types of Puzzles - Continued

• The Classic Diversion If a player sees that a
  guard will always leave his post to investigate a
  noise, he can go to a different location and set
  up a noise-making device there.

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Types of Puzzles - Continued

• Sequence Puzzles Usually the player is
  presented with a simple means to achieve a simple
  goal. However, suddenly when he performs the
  action something pops up to prevent his achieving
  that goal.The situation then resets, and the
  player must put something in place to solve the
  problem before kicking off the sequence again.

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Types of Puzzles - Continued

• Logic Puzzles The player must deduce a
  particular bit of information by examining a
  series of statements and ferreting out a hidden
  implication.
• Classic Game Puzzles In Death Gate the
  entrance to a cave is controlled by a mechanical
  device built into the wall that requires the
  player to manipulate its elements into a certain
  configuration before the door will open.

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Types of Puzzles - Continued

• Riddles
• My first name comes before a duck,
• My last names found in fences.
• Some days I have to bring a truck,
• To bring home all my pences.
• Answer Bill Gates

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Types of Puzzles - Continued

• Dialog Puzzles These puzzles require the player
  to follow a conversation down the correct path
  until a character says or does the right thing.
  (Paranoia)
• Trial-and-Error Puzzles Make the player try
  everything until something works. (Bad Idea)

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Types of Puzzles - Continued

• Machinery Puzzles In Companions of Xanth the
  door that controls access to the magicians
  castle is operated from a panel with several
  levers. The player has to learn how to manipulate
  the levers, and when he does so bcorrectly, the
  door opens.

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Types of Puzzles - Continued

• Alternative Interfaces In Mission Critical
  theres a rupture in the pipes that provide the
  coolant fluid to the spaceships nuclear reactor.
  The player has to manipulate the controls of the
  machine that pumps the fluid through the pipes,
  to reroute the fluid past the rupture and prevent
  a meltdown.

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Types of Puzzles - Continued

• Mazes You are in a maze of twisty passages,
  all alike. You should create a maze only if you
  have developed an interesting unique twist to
  mapping.
• Gestalt Puzzles In Trinity has a sundial
  puzzle where the player is transported to a
  half-light, half-dark bizarre world. Its the
  face of a sundial.

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What Makes a Bad Puzzle

• Good puzzle design involves looking around in the
  world you have created and using obstacles,
  objects, and characters that would naturally
  occur in the environment. Bad puzzles violate
  this rule, and they frequently break other rules
  as well.

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What Makes a Bad Puzzle(Continued)

• Restore Puzzles Its unfair to kill off a
  player for not solving a puzzle and only then
  provide him with the information he needed to
  solve it. (Room with gas.)
• Arbitrary Puzzles Effects should always be
  linked to causes. Events shouldnt happen just
  because the designer decided that its time for
  them to happen.

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What Makes a Bad Puzzle(Continued)

• Designer Puzzles Avoid those puzzles that make
  sense only to you, the designer. Just because the
  connections are clear in your head doesnt mean
  that they will make sense to the player.
• Binary Puzzles Avoid binary puzzles. These are
  puzzles with yes or no answers that yield
  instant success or failure. When you give the
  player choices, give him lots of choices.

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What Makes a Bad Puzzle(Continued)

• Hunt-the-Pixel Puzzles Sometimes an important
  object on the screen is so small that its easy
  to overlook. This is usually created by problems
  of scale. If the room is large and the object is
  small, the player might overlook it.

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What Makes a Good Puzzle

• Fairness In a fair game, the answer to every
  puzzle is contained within the game. In addition,
  a player should theoretically be able to solve it
  the first time he encounters it simply by
  thinking hard enough (assuming that he has been
  presented with all the information).

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What Makes a Good Puzzle(Continued)

• Appropriate to the Environment The best puzzles
  fit naturally into the story and give the player
  the opportunity to learn more about the people,
  the setting and the world they are exploring.
• Amplifying the theme The actions must be
  reasonable things for his character to do.

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Levels of Difficulty

• Bread Crumbs One of the easiest ways to adjust
  the difficulty is to change the amount or
  directness of information you give the player.
• The solutions proximity to the Puzzle How
  close the designer put the answer to the problem
  determines how easy the puzzle is.

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Levels of Difficulty(Continued)

• Alternative Solutions Another way to make a
  game easier is to provide alternative solutions
  to puzzles.
• Red Herrings (Misinformation) One way to make a
  game harder is to include red herrings.
• Steering the player You should constantly be
  steering the player toward the right answers to
  the puzzle by providing clues in the responses
  you make to his input.

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How to Design the Puzzle

• Creating the Puzzle You begin where any author
  begins, with your story and characters. You
  create a setting and populate it with interesting
  characters. Then you create the player and give
  him an overall goal. Within each scene, you
  create obstacles that hinder the player from
  reaching the goals. Those obstacles are the
  puzzles.

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How to Design the Puzzle(Continued)

• The Villian Something is there that does not
  want your hero to succeed. Whether its a person,
  the gods, the government, or the ultimate bad guy
  whatever that thing is, thats the villain.
  When you are designing a puzzle, ask yourself why
  it should be there. Who would have put it there?
  Who is this bad guy, and why is he threatening
  your hero?

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How to Design the Puzzle(Continued)

• Player Empathy This is the ability to look at
  the game from the players point of view. When
  you do this, you can anticipate the kinds of
  things he will want to try. When you learn to
  anticipate his moves, you can give him a better
  game experience by creating interesting reactions
  to them.

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Summary

• Make sure that your puzzles enhance the game
  rather than detract from it. Use puzzles to draw
  the player into your story so that he learns more
  about your characters. Dont withhold the
  information he needs in order to solve the
  puzzle. Develop player empathy and strive for
  that perfect level of frustration that drives a
  player forward rather than turns him away. Above
  all play fair!